This verse you cite is definitely judgment, as you call it. I don't see it as abortion. It says to me that barrenness is coming for Ephraim and even for parents who do bring child into this world ["yea, though they bring forth"], God will not let them live or a least not into adulthood.
That sounds horrible. However, Hosea is writing at a time extremely close to when the Assyrians conquered Israel [the ten northern tribes]. Horrible times are coming. Ephraim is sometimes used as a name for Israel.
God is a God of wrath and mercy.
- His wrath is shown upon the adults who worshiped Baal and commit other atrocities by allowing them to be conquered by a fierce and cruel nation. His wrath is also see in his either not allowing children to be born or not allowing their "beloved fruit" to live into adulthood.
- God's mercy is shown by not allowing very many children to be born at this time and not allowing those to be born live until adulthood.
This isn't the first time that God has taken a baby or a child away via death to protect it from something dreadful. I taught in my community Bible Study a few weeks ago how the horrible king of Israel [the 10 tribes], Jeroboam lost a son that God took away.
A prophet tells Jeroboam's wife that her sick son will die. Jeroboam had sent her to ask about what would happen. He even sent gifts. The prophet told her harshly that Jeroboam entire clan would be destroyed eventually. But that when she went back home as soon as she crossed the threshold, her child would die.
That seems harsh to punish a child for great sins of his father, right? But in 1 Kings 14, the Bible states that the prophet told her that God was taking the child because that child was the ONLY one in Jeroboams household with whom God had found anything pleasing. It was a grievous loss to the wicked Jeroboam and his wife, but it was a victory for the child that God spared him the devastations and horror that were to come.
And then, of course, there is David's baby who dies. God punished David by taking his baby son. God spared that son, who would be known all his days as a bastard son, from shame.
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